Widespread Panic

I said, “It’s for Joan.”

She said, “You know exactly what to say to get exactly what you want from me. Truth serum, really.”

Connie sat in the red chair. I sat on the red footstool. She held out her left arm. I swipe-swabbed it with alcohol and measured a mainline. I spike-speared her and jammed her the juice.

She sighed and went loosey-goosey. I said, “Count backward from one hundred and feel free to shut your eyes.”

She moved her lips. I barely heard it: 100, 99, 98, gonesville. I took a brief breather and consulted my control notes.

Joan rat-out #84. Code name: Lazy Maizie. She’s a San Marino socialite. She makes big donations to the Strikebusters’ International. It’s a known Commo front. Joan rat-out #204. Code name: John Henry. He’s a male Negro. He’s right tackle for the Detroit Lions. Charlie Fullerton’s comment: “All the mud-shark girls go nuts for him.”

I said, “How do you feel, Connie?”

Connie said, “Loose. But what if I don’t feel inclined to...”

“Name names? That’s okay. I’d be satisfied with simple, candid responses.”

Connie, très loose: “Love, I’m sure that’s all you’ll ever get from...”

I said, “Lazy Maizie.”

Connie, très, très loose. “She smoked hashish. She... put... her... hand on Joan’s leg... and Joan slapped her.”

That was gooooood. It was Joan-centric and Joan-phobic. I laid John Henry on her.

Connie, yet more loose: “He was... a steel-driving man in a Negro spiritual. We... sang that song at all the Scottsboro Boys rallies... we knew that something like half of them were guilty, though.”

It was half good. Connie voiced un-Commie-esque candor. I gave her a brief breather.

Rat-out #114 was un-code-named. I’d have to mention Sammy Ahlendorf to rouse recollection. The papers toed Bill Parker’s line, per dead Sammy. It’s suicide, case closed. Connie believed that horseshit.

I said, “Joan informed on this man. She must have felt very strongly about him. He said he wanted to murder all FBI snitches, but I don’t know his name. He never joined your cell, although he was very much in the thrall of Sammy Ahlendorf, and I think it’s safe to say that he shared Sammy’s anti-A-bomb mentality, which is to say he was pissed off when we A-bombed the Japs, even though they were fascists, and even though they dropped those eggs on Pearl Harbor.”

Connie sighed. Her hands twitched. Her eyelids fluttered. She’s digging deep here.

“I... remember him... He said, ‘We’ve got to expose the bomb before it wipes out the human race, and I’m going to build my career on it.’ ”

She snapped awake then. She didn’t name names or say his name. She didn’t need to. She’d already said this to me:

“He was my last tortured and torturing male lover — before you.”

Fullerton’s file facts fit. They surged circumstantial. Joan’s rat-out rang true. It did not mean that Steve Cochran killed her.